


Dark Side of the Moon

by jane_potter



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-13
Updated: 2009-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:08:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jane_potter/pseuds/jane_potter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Batman comes to him in the dark and silence of the night, Jim grieves for his wounds and tries to love this broken man as best he can, knowing that it will never heal him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Side of the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> GUYS. FUUUUUCK. I HAVE FINAL EXAMS ON MONDAY. So of course I wrote this instead of studying. Comments will ease my pain. :D

On his back in bed, Jim opens his eyes and looks up at the moon. Eclipsed by the cowl's dark silhouette, nothing but a sliver of pearl-white shows of the moon shining through the window directly behind Batman, who looms above Jim like a predator in nothing but his cowl, a damaged god offering his body to his only worshipper. The room is nearly dead silent as he rides Jim slowly, neither of them able or willing to give away anything of themselves but the occasional gasp.

The silver gilds Batman like a cold aura. Jim aches-- it will never be sunshine. The dark knight has only the inconstant, fickle moon for his guide, she who often abandons him to darkness.

There ought to be enough pale, ambient illumination in the room for Jim to see at least a little of Batman's still masked face, but the vigilante has his eyes closed and all light is swallowed by the black hole of the cowl and paint, gaping lightless and dark where his features would be able to go maskless in a kinder, better world. The matte graphite doesn't even reflect the softest gleam.

Breathing deeply, evenly, Batman continues to ride Jim. His muscles flex and glide under pale skin, and some of his shadows move as he does, but some don't. The bruises cling to his flesh like ghosts, Gotham's dead haunting this brokenly heroic man. The scars collect darkness in their own strange ways, like grime caught in the cracks, warping the shadows that would fall more regularly on undamaged skin.

Tenderly, in grief for what's been done to the city's only protector, Jim slides a hand up Batman's thigh, feeling hard muscles ripple like quicksilver. His skin is hot but feverishly dry. Jim worries about infection in the newest wound, a raggedly stitched cut high on the crest of Batman's hip. Most of his injuries end up mended by neat, even stitches, and Jim thanks God every day that evidently Batman has somebody else to take care of him, but this one is obviously done by Batman's own hand, and badly. Too private or embarrassed or proud or busy to take care of himself properly.

Even gods can break, and Batman is nothing so divine.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Jim reaches up and slides his fingers into Batman's hand, hanging by his side in the cold stillness of not touching. The powerful grip closes, calluses like leather, and Batman quickens his pace for Jim's sake. He's close, he can feel it in his core, climax spurred along by Batman's movements. Jim hopes he's not giving in too early, that Batman's not far behind, because it always ends when Jim comes, whether or not Batman finishes too. He gives all to Jim and takes nothing, will accept nothing.

A shudder, a series of escalating gasps-- Batman's eyes open to watch as Jim arches into his climax, sinking down one last time and stilling, thighs spread in a wide straddle to accept Jim's climax with as much vulnerability as he can offer. It's terrible, awful at the same time that Jim's orgasm heightens because of it, that Batman debases himself so for Jim.

Wracked with guilt, he reaches up faster than Batman can stop him and takes the other man's cock, heavy and velvet-smooth, and strokes him hard and fast, as good as he can make it. Batman seizes his wrist in a flash, smoldering black eyes forbidding the touch, angry at the transgression of their unspoken rules, but it's too late to stop what Jim has done and the anger is mixed with helpless relief as he comes, shuddering and pouring out his tension onto Jim's skin.

Hunched over Jim with his head bowed, jaw clenched, shoulders tight as he rides out the waves of his release, Batman grips the bedsheets with one fist. The other is still clamped around Jim's wrist, unwittingly holding Jim's palm to his cock. His shadow falls full length over Jim, the moon blocked out entirely by the great monolith of his muscle and scar tissue.

Slowly, still hiding in the blackness behind his closed eyelids, Batman unclenches, disentangles himself from Jim. Moving with eerie, otherworldly grace that can silence even the creaking bedsprings, he eases himself up and steps carefully off the bed, not looking at Jim. The shadows retreat from Jim as he is bared to the moonlight once more, but never from Batman.

Hot shame swallows Jim as he watches fluid trickle down the insides of Batman's thighs. Such a man should never be so degraded, and yet he refuses to accept it any other way. This is the way is has to be if Jim wants to be able to offer any kindness, any tenderness at all.

Blackness swathes the dark knight once more as he rebuilds himself with his back turned to Jim. The shadows gather back to him bit by bit as he dresses, one dark garment at a time from the bottom up-- pants, socks, boots, Kevlar plates tight and hard over shins, thighs. It's as if, when he pays tribute to the city's torment by clothing himself in mourning colours, the night recognises Batman as part of itself and opens up to welcome him in again.

And this-- this is the last thing Jim sees before the last bit of skin vanishes beneath black fabric too thin to protect the protector. Ugly shadows cling to his lean, knotted back like the ghastly imprints of wings, bruises bone-deep in his flesh, painfully present even before he plunges into darkness again.

The dark knight has been too long in Gotham's clutches. Her shadows stain him now even when he stands bathed in as much moonlight as the night can offer, and Jim knows that they are never going to go away again.


End file.
